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Week 47 – Proofreading

Did you ever proofread the galleys of your own book before it was published? It’s boring—until you find a typo, otherwise known as a mistake.

For the past three days I’ve been going over the galleys of my novel Highway Sailor. This is the second galley proof I’ve gone over and I’m still finding typos that I personally overlooked and typos the graphic designer made.

What kind of typos? I’ve come across many paragraphs indented eight spaces when they should be indented only four. Some quote marks were not deleted like I pointed out in the first galley proof. I found several words misspelled. These are just a few examples of what I’ve come across that anyone reading my book would find distracting and unprofessional.

A writer has to rely mainly on himself when it comes to proofreading. If the finished product isn’t as flawless and meticulous as he can make it, people won’t take his work seriously.